Real Life !!

Real life has again taken me away from my blog, the seemingly never ending stream of jobs to do round the house, has limited me to an hour or two on the pc.

Wallpapering the hall eventually got finished, and for now it'll have to do. It's not perfect by any means as the coating over the plaster is very uneven and shows through my wallpapering which wasn't too bad considering it's been years since I did any. I'm hoping after a while I just won't see the unevenness, as I really don't want to have to do it again. I started painting it yesterday ...with a 2.5" brush as the paint pad we'd been using up to now, seemed to have vanished into thin air !! It took me most of the afternoon to do 2/3rds of the walls, hopefully I'll get the rest finished today.

My oldest daughter and her family came to visit over the weekend. As it was very windy on the Saturday we went off to take some photo's at various beaches. We went to Newborough beach first and was appalled to see that it had gone up from £2 to £3 to visit this beach, I can't see how they justify this price rise, but we had a good time while we were there. From there, we went to a smaller beach called Cable Bay as we expected the sea was very rough and there were loads of surfers there. Next was Rhosneigr beach and we watched wind surfers doing their stuff !! Lots of photo's were taken and 4 of my favourite ones I'll put on the end of this post.

On Monday some plants were offered on my local Freecycle or Freegle as it's now known. As I want to add to my small collection I wrote asking for them and was very happy to get an email to say I could share them with another lady. We duly set off to pick them up, only to get there and have the lady say " Oh I know you !! " It turned out she followed my blog lol, and I follow hers...small world isn't it. We really enjoyed seeing this lady's garden, as it was one of those quirky ones that had lots of different corners packed full of interesting plants and weird and wonderful containers. This lady is also a fan of car boots like myself, so while we chatted about them my daughter enjoyed having a nose in a very cleverly converted summer house, which was wallpapered with old newspaper clippings. As I know Vicky will probably read this at some some point, thanks again Vicky and we loved your garden. Do pop along to Anglesey Alsorts to read Vickys blog.

Some seaweed that had lovely rainbow coloured bubbles


This is a garden we pass to go to Rhosneigr beach, it always makes me smile.


Some wind surfers at Rhosneigr beach



Surfers taking advantage of rough sea's at Cable Bay

Lovely day

Yesterday was my birthday, and a very pleasant one too. Although my birthdays are always low key anyway, a visit from a close friend and a trip to the beach on a warm, sunny autumn day to watch the sea which was a beautiful turquoise blue, with my daughter made it a very happy day. I had numerous birthday wishes on my facebook page, some text messages and a visit from my oldest daughter this weekend to look forward as well.

Yesterday was also my 2nd day at attempting to wallpaper our hallway. Both days I've managed to do 4 lengths of wallpaper before my back gave out because of the standing. I was hoping to do some more when we got back from the beach, but a walk along the beach put pay to that lol. Today should see it finished hopefully as there is only the fiddly bits to do above doors etc, then my daughter will get stuck in painting it.

Then at last I might be able to make a start on the large abstract oil painting I'm going to do for above the fireplace. Np photo's of the fireplace yet as we still aren't happy with it. We were talking about it yesterday, and neither of us are happy with the cladding on the side of it, due to the fireplace being very uneven it's stopped the mdf from sitting neatly against it, so I think we're going to remove the sides and see what we can do instead. We're also going to change the colour of the paint to a deep chocolate brown too.

Chirk Car Boot

Yesterday morning saw my daughter and I up and out at the crack of dawn. We were off to go and have a look round a car boot we'd been told was really good. An hour and half later we arrived at Chirk car boot, and sure enough there were loads of booters there. Sadly there wasn't really anything that caught our eye, so we only came away with a couple of things each, very disappointing for such a long drive. Maybe the organisers should also put the postcode of the actual car boot rather than the one that's on there, as we couldn't find it from the one on the website, and neither could another couple that we bumped into either lol.

However, the day wasn't a total waste of time, as we popped into visit Bryn a good friend of ours who'd moved recently, and we spent a couple of hours catching up with others news and helped Bryn sort out his pc so his dongle would work and he could get online.

I've definitely paid the price for walking round a big car boot, even though I left a lot of the them out. I was in agony while we were there and still am today too. But I expect I'll survive I always do lol !!

Nothing got done around the house yesterday, we were both so tired when we got home, we had to go to sleep for a couple of hours lol. But hopefully today we'll get the fireplace finished at last and some photo's taken, then I'll be moving on to the wallpapering in the hallway, maybe that won't get started until the pain in my back eases off a bit though.

Slowly but surely

Slowly but surely the fireplace is coming together. I have to say it hasn't been helped by the floor being uneven and I don't think the original fireplace is level either !! Oh well these things are sent to try us.

In between waiting for paint to dry on the fireplace, and glue to dry on some mosaic balls I'm doing for a good friend of mine for his garden, my daughter and I also started to strip the wallpaper in the hallway. If this wallpaper hadn't been patched up so much I would have left it to be honest, but odd squares of paper just stuck on randomly just doesn't look good, and when these bits of paper aren't even matched to the pattern it looks even worse. So it had to go !! Re papering might take a little longer as it's not one of my daughters many talents, and I can't stand for very long.

One of my daughters talents is learning the art of tattooing though, and below is a photo of the latest tattoo she's done on herself. How she manages to contort her body enough to do a tattoo on her foot, is a mystery to me lol. I love the words of the tattoo, and think everyone should follow them.

We went off on a mission yesterday to get an off cut of carpet for the hallway, and what a bargain we got too. A nice piece of very hard wearing, good quality cream carpet 15ft long by 4ft wide for £15 from a little carpet shop in Pentreath. I've just realised as I typed this that I meant to go and pay a visit to the garden centre where I bought a slice of tree the other week, but we forgot as we were so pleased to get such a bargain with the carpet grrrrr.

Light at the end of the tunnel

At long last I can see the light at the end of the tunnel where the mosaic for the fireplace is concerned. The three panels are now sporting some very colourful mosaics, which have been grouted and decorated and have had one coat of background paint. Once the 2nd coats on, there's just the rest of the fireplace to clad and the jobs done whooooo. It's been a much much longer job than I expected, I really did think the whole lot would be done in a week, I should have known that was a bit optimistic of me lol.

A trip back to the doctors to have my blood pressure checked is on the cards tomorrow :o( I had a good few days where I felt decidedly unwell I have to say. I was feeling lightheaded, dizzy and just not right. But that feeling seems to be fading slowly, so fingers crossed that all goes well tomorrow.

My daughters car has now passed it's MOT ...whooooo. She had a day of having to get around on the bus yesterday, always a long drawn out affair round here as the bus has to go round all the little villages, before it gets where you're trying to go. But it's done now for the next year.

New patient check up :o(

Yesterday saw me waking up feeling anxious and stressed for no apparent reason, this is quite unusual for me, as I'm quite a laid back person. I thought no more of it, apart from wondering what was causing it, and trotted off to the doctors for the usual new patient check up. To my horror my blood pressure was 195/85, although I've always been overweight my blood pressure has always been surprisingly normal. The nurse took my blood pressure 4 times in the end and it was the same each time. I'm hoping that it was just feeling anxious and stressed business that caused it, and nothing that's going to make high blood pressure a regular feature in my life. The trouble is worrying about it being high doesn't do any good, but I can't seem to help it !!

Supermarkets are getting very sneaky. I usually buy enough dog food to last a fortnight, however the last fortnight we ran out well before time, which I found very odd as my dog has a measured amount of food each day. Then I realised that this fortnights dog food was also going down very quickly too. Not wanting to run out while my daughter was away at her sisters, we went to Tesco's where I bought an extra packet, but I noticed the price had gone up by 40p. When I got home I compared the two bags of dog food and surprise surprise, Asda have reduced the size of their bags of dog food by 1/2 a kilo. How sneaky is that !!

Twilight shift again

Well I woke up at 3 am this morning and try as I might, I just couldn't get back to sleep again. As I've got to be awake for an important phone call, which could be any time after 9am, I doubt I'll be able to snatch an hour to catch up later on. So it looks like I'll be having a very sleepy day today ....not good when I've got so many things to do at the moment.

Our trip to Wrexham on Sunday was a lovely. My friend has bagged herself a fantastic little stone cottage with an amazing custom built fireplace. It had lots of quirky little features and I just fell in love with it. While we were there my friend told she'd had to make a mad dash down to the Stratford Upon Avon area after a frantic call off her mother. When she arrived she found her mother in a very agitated state, my friends father in law sadly has a brain tumour and there's no cure. The reason for all the agitation, was because this poor man has suffered a catalogue of appalling treatments from the various so called "care" agencies involved with him.

A trip to the local hospice resulted in him being given a sugary cup of tea and a slice of cake when he is a diabetic two days running, despite his wife pointing out his medical condition, all because he wasn't given a wrist band indicating he was diabetic !! This amongst other things made his wife decide to care for him at home. Since then, there has been a constant stream of care workers, district nurses and respite care staff visiting their home daily. This you would think would ease the burden of watching a loved one die slowly, and make this mans time left on this earth a little more comfortable ...but oh no, there has been one medical catastrophe after another.

I would go into detail and would list the many and constant mistakes, some of them which could have serious consequences for this man, but I doubt anyone would believe me. I know the NHS is seriously under funded, but there is no excuse for the disgusting way this man has been treated. I'd like to think that the people responsible for these many errors in care, would be brought to task, but I doubt very much whether his wife will be in any fit state to take the matter any further, and people wonder why I avoid hospitals and medical staff like the plague !!

One panel finished

Late last night I finished the mosaic on the first panel for the fireplace, and though I say so myself, I'm quite pleased with it. It still needs some little extra's added to it, and the background painted, but the hard bit is done now. I shall have to get my daughter to cut the rest of the panels, before she goes off down to her sisters, for a couple of days in the Midlands. I'll also have to cut a load more tiles before I start the next one, which I'm not looking forward to incase it kick starts the arthritus in my hands again, how I wish I had one of those glass cutting machines to make the job easier.

A couple of days ago on the way to Caernafon we popped into a garden centre I'd spotted previously, Treborth Garden Centre. What a great place, my daughter and I spent a very enjoyable hour there. There were some beautiful house plants (something we'd been looking all over Anglesey for, with no sucess), beautiful tubs of colourful plants even at this time of the year, and also some very unusual ornaments, at quite reasonable prices too. This place actually looked like a garden centre, unlike the Hollands Garden Centre on Anglesey, which has now turned into a glorified, over priced gift shop.... big mistake there I think !!!

We went on a mission yesterday looking for a 2nd hand double oven cooker, something we've needed for a while now. Luck was with us and we spotted a lovely one over in Colwyn Bay. This will hopefully be winging it's way to us once its had a safety check :o) We also popped into B&Q on the way home to check out their paint section, as most of the other major DIY shops seemed to have all the same coloured paints called different names. They had a great selection, metallic wall paint ( I was very tempted lol ) suede effect paint, and loads of different colours to the other shops. I've now found the paint for my bedroom ...deep purple of course, my favourite colour. So that will be got in a couple of weeks time.

Today we are having a break from all things to do with the house, and are going over to Wrexham to visit a friend in her new house. Well I say new, it's actually a listed building lol. As it's surrounded by woods I think I'll take my camera, which reminds me I need to recharge the batteries, so that's it for me today folks.

Time running away

Time seems to be flying past since we've moved. No sooner have I written on here, than another week has gone by !!

Now all the unpacking is done, it's time to get down to the more enjoyable stuff. Putting up shelves to show off my ornaments etc. The mantlepiece is now in place, my daughters not totally happy with the way it's being held up, but it's ok for now. It looks amazing. I've been busy for the last two days doing the first of 3 mosaic panels to cover up the hideous 50's tiles fireplace. I wish I'd made the design a little smaller as it's using up quite a lot more of my glass tiles than I expected, but seeing as it's 3/4's done, it's a bit late to moan now lol. I keep meaning to take photo's of the mantle piece but keep forgetting....ooops.

On our fortnightly shopping trip, I spotted a gorgeous rich deep blue duvet set, I just couldn't resist it, even though it was well over priced. It's rare I treat myself so I'm trying not to feel too guilty about it. I think I'm going to have to do a different colour theme now though. I was going to do an indian themed room in deep purple and and deep red, I'm not sure if I'll be able to incorporate deep blue into as well. Maybe it'll be deep blue with deep purple and splashes of deep red now.